This will be the last year Fresno State will be printing hard copies of the General Catalog. The university plans on switching to a completely online version for the 2013- 2014 school year.

Dennis Nef, dean of undergraduate studies, said there were many factors that led to the decision to move the catalog online. One factor is that the number of catalog sales has been steadily decreasing over the years.­ In addition to this, many other colleges in the CSU system plan switching to an online catalog as well.

“Given the change in technology in the last couple of years, this looks to be both a more effective and efficient method for delivering information to students,” Nef said.

Currently, the catalog is set up in a linear fashion, listing courses and course descriptions by subject. The online catalog will provide a roadmap of courses for students to take, Nef said. This will allow students to quickly find courses in different subjects by simply clicking on the link provided instead of flipping through pages and looking up the courses.

Currently, the students who purchase the catalogs pay for the cost of printing them, but the new online catalog will be free for students to access, saving them the $25 cost.

The online design will be different from the current online version. The cost to start the online program will be roughly $25,000, Nef said. Those who write the content and design the catalog at this time will then be in charge of the online version as well.

“I think it will be more user-friendly to students,” Nef said.

Though there are still many decisions on the design of the website, the program will be similar to other universities that currently use an online catalog. One of these universities is Stony Brook University. Students interested in checking out an example of an online catalog can visit, http://sb.cc.stonybrook.edu/bulletin/current/